He stepped into her office.
* * *
COOPER BRACED HIS body in front of Gabrielle’s. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said flatly.
Wait, who was he talking to? Gabrielle peered around his shoulder. The older man with the gray at his temples or Agent Evers?
Gabrielle pushed onto her tiptoes and tried to see a bit better.
“No.” Cooper spun around and grabbed her shoulders. “The less you know about him, the better off you are.”
Her heart slammed into her ribs. Just when she’d thought that things surely couldn’t get any worse...
“Don’t be so certain,” the man replied. “I’m here to offer Ms. Harper a very special deal, one that I think she’ll accept, if she wants to keep living.”
She met that man’s stare
, feeling a wave of shock sweep over her. “Are you threatening me?”
The man was handsome, tall, fit...and dangerous. The danger clung to him like a second skin.
Noelle Evers stood beside him, and she kept glancing nervously at the fellow.
“I don’t threaten,” the man said simply. “Threats are a waste of time. It’s actions that matter.”
Cooper dropped his hold on her.
Gabrielle shook her head. “Who are you?”
“Let’s just say I’m an old friend of your boss’s.”
Doubtful. “Are you the same ‘friend’ who convinced Hugh to take his little out-of-town trip?”
He flashed a grim smile. “Guilty.”
Okay. Her breath was icy in her lungs. She wasn’t just looking at another agent. “You’re the one in charge here, huh?”
His head inclined.
“You’re in danger,” Noelle said, her words sharp. “I think you’re the killer’s next victim.”
Was that true? Or just the EOD’s way of trying to keep Gabrielle in line?
“I believe that he’s going to come after you—” Noelle advanced toward her “—in order to hurt Cooper.”
Her temples were throbbing. “How would targeting me do anything to Cooper?”
Beside her, Cooper growled. Actually growled.
Her gaze shot to him.
“It would do plenty.” He’d never looked at her quite that way before. The intensity in his eyes scorched through her.
For a moment, Gabrielle was at a loss.
“You need protection.” The big boss seemed definite on this point. “The local cops can’t handle this killer—”
“—because he’s someone you trained, and now you can’t control him?” Yep. There she went. Saying perhaps a wee bit too much to a man who could probably make her vanish in five seconds flat. Actually, he’d already made her vanish.